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DIY Elysian Los Angeles wedding: Carsen + Darren

We love when we ask brides what from their wedding was DIY and they respond with, What wasn’t?!. That’s how MUAH artist Carsen answered, since she’d created everything from hundreds of paper flowers to tassel garlands to the Los Angeles themed centerpieces for her + Darren’s day. They enlisted Carsen’s college friend and talented photog (who captured their cute e-sesh too) Mary Costa and kicked off the day with some adorable pre-wedding photos with the city behind them.

Our music also had a thread the procession song Somebody To Love by Queen was sung by my dear friend since 7th grade; it represented Darren finding his love in LA. Then the recession song was My Girl by The Temptations, representing that he found his girl. Our first dance was choreographed to Ella Fitzgerald’s At Last to represent my voice in finding my special someone. My daddy-daughter dance was to Louie Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World because it was my late grandfather’s favorite song and one I grew up listening to with him, it marked his place there in my heart and also seemed like the only song fit to dance with my dad to.

C + D chose an LA venue so as east coast transplants they could show off their lives in Los Angeles. Carsen says, We made custom table numbers that were street signs representing different neighborhoods; the head table was Los Feliz because it was our favorite to live in and closest to the neighborhood Elysian is in. The escort cards were hand stamped tags that were hung over an illustrated map of Los Angeles. The succulent aisle arrangements represent the west coast and planting them became a hobby for me during the planning process. We hosted our rehearsal dinner at Golden Road in Glendale and our brunch in our friend’s backyard in Highland Park, so they whole weekend was in a 5 mile radius on the east side of LA which we have called home since 2010.

And one more fun fact: Carsen’s engagement ring was Darren’s grandmother’s from the 1920s, and just so happened to be Carsen’s birthstone AND it fit her without needing to be resized. Ah! Awesome.